The kind of activism undertaken when you “do something” about a problem by tweeting or posting links to Facebook, without any intent of ever actually doing something. Nothing more than a nonsense feelgood gesture so that one can say they “did something about” whatever trendycause they’re pretending to care about. Usually only lasts a week or two before the cause is completely forgotten (i.e. it stops being cool to forward / retweet on the subject).

EXAMPLE: “I forwarded a video about some unspeakable atrocities in a country I didn’t know existed until I watched the video. My hashtag activism is going to accomplish something!” – [UrbanDictionary]

When my partner Richard and I joined the Kings of Code Hack Battle at the Next Web Europe Conference in Amsterdam last week, we knew that we wanted to make an app that would stand in stark contrast to the infamously misogynist “Tit staring app” from TechCrunch Disrupt last year. It’s about time that we change the “dude” culture of programming into a progressive group that builds apps for social change […](more…)